Incidence of surgical site infection and their associated risk factors in the surgical small animal clinic

The surgical site infection (SSI) is a complicating factor that has many risk factors, and most of the information used in this area for veterinary medicine comes from human medicine. The aim of this work was to determine the rate of SSI in the VTH-UFV, and to correlate the incidence of SSI with the following risk factors: surgical wound classification, use of antimicrobial prophylaxis, and therapy and the number of people in the operating room during surgery. For that, information about the occurrence of SSI and the risk factors referred to were collected from 401 medical records. These data underwent statistical analysis and obtained the following results: 21 patients diagnosed with SSI resulting in an infection rate of 5.24% and a significant association between the occurrence of SSI and the surgical procedures with contamination risk higher than 5%. Other risk factors evaluated showed no association. However, in absolute values, a higher incidence of infection was detected in procedures with a greater number of people in the operating room. Therefore, it was possible to observe the importance of obtaining reliable data and the requirement for developing a surveillance system specific for Veterinary Medicine.